I really appreciated this piece. There's a lot of revivalism going around, and it's not good for most people. The idea that you should look back on all your former choices as the work of your wicked self, now renounced, is a very poor basis for life. It would be nice to be a new creation, but we're just the same flawed people, wandering through a world in where there is no obvious battle between light and darkness.
I've left academia, but I don't hate it. It didn't trick me. And if I'm less prone to self-deception, that's the work of time. I still love students, because that category covers anyone who is trying to understand something in this world. Who wouldn't root for those people? And teachers, the ones trying to help somebody understand something -- how could you not hope they'll succeed?
Maybe other people have it all figured out, and we're just slow. But I prefer people who are looking for answers to people who've already found them.
I started referring to myself at professional conferences on sustainability across the curriculum as "a recovering academic" back around 2009. What I meant by that label was that at this-- late-- stage in my career I had relatively more freedom to pick and choose what I believe to be important, meaningful, and fulfilling and to dump or say no to things I consider frivolous, overblown, or a waste of time and energy. For me this meant abandoning pretentious academic research on narrow, tangential topics where publication basically meant a few other hyper-specialists might read it and I get a temporary, fleeting rush of self-esteem for a publication: one more notch on the rifle barrel. Who cares about broadcasting and regime legitimacy in Botswana, anyway? By re-prioritizing my work to mainly teaching undergraduate students while guiding my institution toward sustainability education across the curriculum, I "recovered" and felt like not only work but life was more meaningful. Life is huge; academia is not life. We fool ourselves if we fall prey to the idea that it alone could ever make us whole.
I really appreciated this piece. There's a lot of revivalism going around, and it's not good for most people. The idea that you should look back on all your former choices as the work of your wicked self, now renounced, is a very poor basis for life. It would be nice to be a new creation, but we're just the same flawed people, wandering through a world in where there is no obvious battle between light and darkness.
I've left academia, but I don't hate it. It didn't trick me. And if I'm less prone to self-deception, that's the work of time. I still love students, because that category covers anyone who is trying to understand something in this world. Who wouldn't root for those people? And teachers, the ones trying to help somebody understand something -- how could you not hope they'll succeed?
Maybe other people have it all figured out, and we're just slow. But I prefer people who are looking for answers to people who've already found them.
Thanks for writing this.
I started referring to myself at professional conferences on sustainability across the curriculum as "a recovering academic" back around 2009. What I meant by that label was that at this-- late-- stage in my career I had relatively more freedom to pick and choose what I believe to be important, meaningful, and fulfilling and to dump or say no to things I consider frivolous, overblown, or a waste of time and energy. For me this meant abandoning pretentious academic research on narrow, tangential topics where publication basically meant a few other hyper-specialists might read it and I get a temporary, fleeting rush of self-esteem for a publication: one more notch on the rifle barrel. Who cares about broadcasting and regime legitimacy in Botswana, anyway? By re-prioritizing my work to mainly teaching undergraduate students while guiding my institution toward sustainability education across the curriculum, I "recovered" and felt like not only work but life was more meaningful. Life is huge; academia is not life. We fool ourselves if we fall prey to the idea that it alone could ever make us whole.
Written well, intelligent, observant... but lacking profoundity